


A Ball of Social Niceties

by Arithanas



Series: Love Demands Sacrifices [9]
Category: Les Trois Mousquetaires | The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas
Genre: Family Issues, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-04-27
Updated: 2012-04-27
Packaged: 2018-04-02 06:31:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,178
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4049767
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Arithanas/pseuds/Arithanas
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>1637, Blois - Écouen. Storm clouds are forming in the horizon of Athos' new happiness.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Ball of Social Niceties

The acute shriek of a boy resounded in the walls of Bragelonne and little feet stomped in the saloon floor; the sound of an overturned furniture and some heavy hurried footsteps in the parquet. This was just another Sunday evening in Bragelonne.

The saloon was completely a shambles, the count and his ward were chasing each other around the furniture, in their shirtsleeves, playfully; Athos, playing the fool, feigned to search for Raoul around the chairs and tables, and the boy, sure of being hard to see, tugged his clothes and laughed aloud every time Athos let out a small cry of surprise. A father and a young son sharing a playful moment together, but this was about time to finish it and Athos lunged to pin the small boy to the carpet, his hands extended, and his fingers searched Raoul sides.

"No tickles!" Raoul begged, trying to roll on the carpet, "Please, _pa_!"

Raoul's body was wreaked with the titillations of a good tickling session, his belly undulated and he was flailing his arms up and down among bursts of laughing; Athos simper with him, but his eyes never failed to search for the signals of distress on the boy. When both were approaching to the thin line between game and torture, Athos quitted the tickling and sat of the floor with the euphoric boy in his lap. Raoul laughed, gasped and snorted for a while before resting his weight against Athos' chest.

"Better?" Athos asked, taking the boy's hair out of his eyes.

"No," Raoul said pretty seriously, squirming in his arms and placing his feet in the empty space between his godfather's legs to see him in the eye.

"Why?"

"I want to get even!" Raoul said and pushed Athos away, who obediently fell flat in the carpet. "Tickles!"

The little avenger straddled the adult's midriff and used his little fingers to attack Athos' sides and armpits. Athos was never ticklish, but Raoul tried so hard that it seems cruel not to give the child the opportunity to revenge his wounded pride. He wriggled under Raoul's scarce weight, feigning a laughing fit until the boy took pity on him and knocked it off. The boy laughed and sat in his chest with a wide grin. Athos just lay there, sprawled in the carpet, enjoying the moment. He really liked these afternoons with Raoul.

"Are you all right?" Raoul asked, worried by his stillness.

"Wonderfully!"

"Good," Raoul rested his weigh over his chest, curled up like a pup.

For some moments, the world was restricted to this boy and this carpet, and Athos couldn't ask for more.

...

Once the night fell, they went to the dining room and Athos let Raoul to bless the table; he was being hell-bent set on that little ritual since the priest came to eat with them. Grimaud presented the side of soft pork with their garnishes and a couple of letters with a disturbing seal imprinted in the sealing wax. Raoul was too busy chewing his dinner to notice the distressed expression in Athos' face while he read that piece of paper and signaled some commands to the ever silent Grimaud.

Maybe that was for the best.

When they finished their dinner, Athos took Raoul to the salon and sat him on his lap, instead of carry his boy to his room and tuck it in his bed, as was customary. Raoul was a little startled, but cuddled up to his godfather in the dark salon. Athos smiled and caressed that beloved head with long strokes. Raoul responded to his touch and nuzzled his belly, with the confident touch of a well-loved child.

"I got mail," Athos started to talk; his hand never stopped grazing the boy. "It was an invitation to my aunt's birthday..."

"What's an aunt?"

"My father's sister," Athos answered, this was not the time to explain the boy the complexities of his family tree. "She is an important person to me. I have to go to her party."

"May I go?"

"Your presence was not required."

Athos had not heart to tell the boy his family explicitly ordered to leave his child at home. He was still seething for the colorful epithet written in that piece of paper. That word was always offensive when it was addressed to him, he couldn't bear the insult when it was thrown at his mother, because they had no proof. When they used it to describe Raoul, Athos found it outrageous.

"Don't go!" Raoul's hand clutched the shirt.

"I must go. It's a long trip and she's and elderly lady."

"Stay!"

"I can't, Raoul. I must obey."

Raoul hold Athos tight, he wouldn't let him go willingly, and his tears were poured on Athos' shirt. Athos kept caressing his side, squeezing the boy tenderly against his body.

"Be good. I will bring you a gift, Raoul."

"I don't want a gift," Raoul sobbed, burying his face in Athos' shirt. "I just want you to come back!"

"I promise to you I'll return right back here. Do you believe me?"

"Yes."

"When you wake up tomorrow, I won't be here."

"So soon?"

"I have little time. Would you be good?"

"Yes."

"Try to obey Grimaud. I'll feel better if you promise this to me."

Raoul only nodded and clutched him harder, tighter, closer... Athos knew there wouldn't be words enough to soothe him, so he just kept on the caresses and let the boy wept until he fell asleep. Then, Athos picked him up and climbed the stairs with his precious cargo, mumbling soft promises that Raoul would never hear. The door of his son's room was open and the bed was unmade, ready to cradle his little boy. Athos rocked Raoul in his arms; he was reluctant to let him go. All his family could go to hell in a steadfast horse, for all he cared.

"I'll rush to return to you, Raoul," he promised once he could force himself to lay the boy in the sheets. After he pulled up the covers and deposited a kiss on his child's brow. "You have my word."

Before he lost his heart, Athos left Raoul's room. Grimaud was waiting in the corridor, his expression said he understand the situation. A quick exchange of signals was enough to reach an agreement over the domestic affairs; with military precision, Athos was dressed in his doublet, his valise attached to his saddle and his horse was lead to the courtyard.

"I confide the house to you, Grimaud," Athos said, one foot on the stirrup, "Please, make my absence bearable to Raoul."

Grimaud nodded his agreement and let go the reins. Athos saluted the house-staff with his hat and encouraged the horse to start the long road ahead.

...

Five days on the road were enough to hold his temper and present a composed figure at the doors of that magnificent castle. It had been almost four years since he departed to his exile, four years since he saw his whole family, and these are people who not only knew all his faults, they also had the power to rub his misbehavior to his face with complete impunity.

"I can do it," he said to himself, driving his horse to the gates through the bridge over the moat. "I'm my mother's son."

The sound of horse-hooves on the bridge lulled him away from the threat and drew him nearer to his memories. His mother loved balls and parties, and she was a queen when the Queen was not around. Could he be a man of the world had he been brought up by her hand? It appeared to be most likely, but he was a man and his father took precedence over his upbringing.

His mother was younger than his father and astonishing pretty too. They married because the good King Henri wanted to please his father, one of his closest friends, and she was one of the most spectacular ladies of the Court and a good friend of Queen Marie. That didn't end well. They had nothing in common and she was besieged by the young dandies around Athos' conception and that was enough for his father's family to brand her as an adulteress. That and the fact Queen Marie called her to Paris, ended effectively with their marriage.

"What do we have told you all your life, Olivier?" his father asked when he demanded an explanation. "You are my son! There is no other way around, get used to it!"

"There was only one man in my life before you, my son," his mother writes to him in that intimate correspondence they kept since Athos learned to write. "And that man was the only one after you."

Oh, his mother! He loved his mother tenderly and he was beside himself with happiness when his father let him live with her in Paris when he finished his service at sea. He was seventeen and was almost a boy, but he lived two years that changed his life in Paris; in those two years he learned how to dance and how to love, and how to serve a delicious, flattering comment to an ugly lady without tainting his lips with a lie. She polished the rough draft of man he was and made him a gentleman.

"Your father and his _Puritan_ view of life!" she exclaimed when he confessed to her he didn't knew how to dance, "No, no, no! Definitely, I will not tolerate another La Fère, unfit for the matters of love, wandering around Paris!"

She didn't allow him to escort her to a ball until he learned how to move around the floor. It was a hard task, he was used to maintain his balance in a ship and to change his feet for a sword-thrust, prancing around at the rhythm of the music was all Greek for him. He berated himself every time he made a mistake until she applied the heroic treatment.

"Olivier," she said, unable to see him suffer that way. "You don't understand what dance is, let me explain it to you," in that moment Athos felt his heart sank to his stomach, "Dance is a combat, my boy, you thrust and your partner must parry; the only way you could fail it's if you don't deliver a thrust." His mother, then, clapped his delicate and small hands and commanded to the Spanish lute player: " _¡Tocad un canario!_ " (*)

"Mother, I can't dance a simple _pavana_!" Olivier protested, the humiliation was building inside him. Any other person, his father included, could be dead by that moment for pressing him in that imperious way.

"Not a dance, Olivier, a combat!" she replied, gathering her skirt around her waist. " _En garde, monsieur!_ "

What could he do? As soon as the music began his mind, geared for combat, made him do a couple of clumsy hops, his heels clicking loudly on the floor. His mother, smiling copied them, her eyes daring him to do it better. Athos tried to comply, hoping along and crossing his legs, approaching to her in almost threatening way; she didn't shirk the challenge and soon they were covering the floor, jumping and teasing each other approaching and move away, their eyes locked.

"I knew you could do it," her mother said when they finished the dance. Those simple words made him feel loved and invincible at the same time.

Soon the _dance basse_ had no secrets for him, he could dance the galliard and the branle with equal ease, and once he mastered them, the _haute dance_ was child's play. Athos was finally her escort to every ball she assisted and those nights were the most cherished memories on his heart. In one of those nights, she gave him an advice, one he unfortunately heeded to the letter.

"Your father's family is driven by power, my child," she said to him one night when they returned from a royal ball. "They would love to marry you for a tract of land, and you are better than that," she pressed her hand to his biceps before delivering a cordial, mocking dare: "Prove it by marrying for love."

His family was driven by power, titles are power and in the last twenty years they were losing them, drop by drop like a wounded deer. What had saved Athos' title and lands is the simple fact that, if they disown him, they would lose title and land because his father legacy would be reverted by escheat. Athos was aware of it, but titles and land are nothing without Raoul.

He was his mother's son, and he knew what was really important.

...

"Look who's here!" A familiar voice shouted as soon as he crossed the threshold.

"Alone?" Another taunting voice replied the first shout.

"Whom could he bring along?" A third voice protested. "His wife?"

Athos snorted. It was good to know some things didn't change: "I had missed you too, cousins!"

He alighted without effort, and that was commendable for a man of his age.

"Who said I had missed you?" One of his cousins asked him, approaching with a stable hand to take care of his horse.

"I supposed it," Athos said and made a reverence, "since you issued the invitation."

"My mother wanted to see you, Olivier," he said clasping him to his chest in the most faked embrace he could muster, before he went on in a barely audible whisper: "before you will be disowned once and forever, _cousin_."

"If I spare your life, Henri, it's because I want to make your mother a gift in her birthday," Athos replied, corresponding to his embrace and noticing the fumes of wine in his clothes. He didn't smile when he said aloud: "Well, it's good to see you, even if you didn't miss me. Now, with your permission, I need to deliver a felicitation."

Athos didn't wait for more taunting, spoiled brats are worst when there was not a figure of authority present and it was imperative to tear himself away from temptation. The party was in its loudest moment, the ensemble was set at the hall and inside the gallery there was a dance was still going, the richest clothes twirled around with the methodical precision of the pieces of a clock. Athos knew he had to wait before he could include himself in the dancing group and search for his aunt.

One of his cousins, Charles de Trosly approached him with a goblet filled to the brim with wine and offered to him. Athos saw it and wondering if that was a peace offering, but still he couldn't take it. He was afraid to suffer a relapse of his most recent ailment and shook his head with a smile.

"Word is around that you came alone," Charles said in a confidential tone.

"I hope you didn't bet I'll bring someone along."

"Your valet, perhaps?"

"Are you implying something?"

"We all believe he's almost your wife now you can't have a one."

The taunt was served with skill and tact, Athos could give his cousin that, but that was an insult and it begged for a proper reply.

"You are almost right: he cares for my person and my house, like a wife, but Grimaud is better than any wife."

"Care to explain?" Charles demanded since he could almost feel the concealed stab wound.

"I have no carnal debt with him," Athos said signaling Charles' less-than-youthful wife with a deadpan expression. That was a great alliance for the family, but Athos almost felt sorry for his cousin most of the time.

Before his cousin could manage to concoct a retort, Athos managed to escape from him and slip into the gallery, mingling among the dancers. He smiled a lot and nodded to the people that condescended to recognize him until he found the guest of honor seated by the gilded doors, in the freshest place in the party.

" _Madame_ ," Athos saluted with a profound reverence, his hat in his hand. "I was summoned and here I am. Please allow me to offer you my congratulations in this blessed date when you reach this venerable age."

"Have you noticed how tactfully this boy just called me 'old'?" the elder lady commented to her daughter-in-law with a hearty laugh, "Olivier! I was afraid you wouldn't make an appearance," she said to him, extending her arm. "That's a lot of panache, my boy!"

Athos put a knee on the floor and gently kissed her shaky fingers: "And miss the opportunity to see you? Never!"

"You flatterer! Come and sit here," she said, pointing at a footstool by her side.

Athos obediently sat in the footstool and kept his silence. The music started again and Henri came to ask his wife for a dance, he smiled at seeing Athos in the place of the pages. Athos couldn't care less for his smile; his mind was busy sorting out his options in this mess. A hand in his shoulder made him smile. Athos always liked his aunt, maybe because, like his own mother, like himself, she was an outsider to the family.

"You reckless boy," she chided him and smacked him over the head with her fan, "How do you manage to get yourself into so much trouble?"

"Believe me, aunt, I'm not sure," Athos replied taking out his hat. "I fancy it is a natural gift."

"You are in hot water again, rascal."

"Your letter made that pretty clear, but this time I'm innocent: I _found_ the boy."

"Did you find the boy? And did he come with the title of viscount around the neck?"

Athos didn't consider it to be a trouble. Bragelonne was his fief and he was exercising his prerogative to partake it with whoever please him, he was just making the habit of calling Raoul 'viscount' by the people in the vicinity, now the proceedings were in motion, he even had Richelieu's say so in the affair, though neither the Cardinal nor his family seemed aware of it. It was point in his favor. His aunt gave him a stern glare and he did his best to show his innocence. She must find his eyes pretty candid because she heaved a sigh and took her right hand to her temple.

"You boys will be the death of me," she complained with faint voice, "between your rather disorganized way to manage your affairs and your cousin’s indiscretions..."

"Well, dear aunt, I'm sure you are aware of what my mother used to say."

"If you have nothing good to say," the lady smiled at him with a tenderness she could muster. It was evident she had a soft spot for her nephew.

"Please, make haste and tell me all," Athos followed her cue, giving her his most charming smile. He made a simple gesture to point her the magnificent gilded doors that lead to the gardens. "You seem hot and rather ill at ease. May I have the honor to escort you?"

**Author's Note:**

> (*) Play a canarie!
> 
> A/N: The canary dances for couples of Spanish origin. They were different from dances of the court since they were rather athletic and had a faster rhythm. Most of the time they were improvised.


End file.
